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Yeah, no Avellone. But it did have George Ziets, though. Narrative certainly did take a backseat to gameplay in this game, but the narrative it did have was still pretty good, and there was some rudimentary branching paths and companion relations. As I said, it needed more time and budget than it got, but you can make out the distinct Obsidian style if you look closely. I particularly liked the DLC backstory of St. Hiram at the monastery, and his martyrdom there. That seems like exactly the sort of thing that would belong in Sawyer's historical RPG, if that ever gets made. A lot of the DS3 ideas are half-baked, but they're good ideas nonetheless.
More time and budget would have helped with the reception from ~other players~ but not the Codex, which has a fundamental problem with Obsidian's goals for the title.
George Ziets said:Good question, Kevin. The DS3 story went through so many rewrites that I don’t remember exactly where it was when you left the company, but I’m sure it was early in the process – probably right after I finished the Ehb sourcebook.Kevin Saunders said:I've got one for you George: when I departed DS III in June 2009, the creative foundation you were laying was awesome. I expected another story masterpiece. But the final game (10/2011) didn't excite most critics with its story. What the heck happened? =)
My early drafts of the story were truer to my usual narrative tendencies. They were more personal - focused on the player – and they depicted a “grayer” version of the Legion. One of the storylines – possibly the one you remember – also included a lot more supernatural elements.
However, it was decided (above my pay grade) that we should keep the story focused on a threat that affected the nation or the world. Also, there was a desire to ensure that the Legion was clearly Good. I think the underlying impulse was to avoid a lot of narrative complexity, which makes sense in a franchise like Dungeon Siege.
So at that point, I started a long cycle of story revisions. Normally, the iteration process is where your story gets progressively stronger. But in this case, I remember feeling that we’d ended up with a weaker, more watered-down story than some of the earlier versions.
Why did that happen? In my opinion, it’s because we never fully resolved the tensions that were inherent in our high-level vision – marrying an action RPG with an Obsidian-style story. We wrestled with pacing, dialogue style, and the appropriate depth of story until the end of production. And we ended up in a bland midpoint between the two genres that pleased few people.
To our credit, I think we found the right balance when we made the expansion, Treasures of the Sun. Also, the narrative in TotS was more open-ended and exploratory, which I think worked a lot better for that style of game.
Tony Evans said:Agreed. We should not have attempted to tell much of a story in DS3. I pushed too hard for story in the beginning, and you, George, sealed our fate by writing such a kick ass narrative bible for a game license that was unsuited for such depth.